OPINION
PETTINE, Senior District Judge.
The plaintiffs brought this action in December 1985 seeking a declaratory judgment invalidating all rules, regulations and guidelines of the Rhode Island Heritage Commission that prohibit the display or distribution of any political paraphernalia, including political buttons, hats, pins and pamphlets at the Rhode Island Heritage Day festivities. The plaintiffs also seek a permanent injunction barring the defendants, their agents, employees, officers and attorneys from restricting the plaintiff Irish Northern Aid’s participation in the Heritage Day activities. The plaintiffs base this cause of action on 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 2202 (1982).
The plaintiffs allege that the Rhode Island Heritage Commission has deprived them of their rights of free speech guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States; and that the Rhode Island Heritage Commission has denied them equal protection of the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that the defendants have applied the regulation unequally. The plaintiffs claim a cause of action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982) to redress these alleged deprivations of their civil rights, and seek recovery of their attorneys’ fees as authorized by 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (1982). The plaintiffs ask the Court to take pendent jurisdiction of claims brought under the Rhode Island Constitution; they invoke the jurisdiction granted this Court in 28 U.S.C. § 1343 (1982).
I. FACTS
The facts in this case are relatively simple and undisputed. The Rhode Island Heritage Commission (“the Commission”) is a state commission within the executive branch of the Rhode Island state government. Former Rhode Island Governor J. Joseph Garrahy established the Commission with executive order No. 10, July 1, 1977, and the Commission’s existence was codified by statute in 1981. R.I.Gen.Laws § 42-79-1 (1984). The purposes of the Commission include:
(1) Sponsoring and/or coordinating heritage festivals;
(2) Conducting and/or sponsoring heritage seminars, conferences, and symposiums;
(3) Publishing scholarly and popular works relating to the social, political, and cultural development of the state;
(4) Coordinating programs with other private or public groups or agencies which will meet the cultural needs of Rhode Island’s citizens;
(5) Observing important events in the state’s history with suitable celebrations; and
(6) Funding projects and programs of public or private groups or agencies which relate to the heritage of Rhode Island and its people. R.I.Gen.Laws § 42-79-4 (1984).
Since its creation in 1977, the Heritage Commission has fulfilled this mandate in association with diverse community organizations.
The bulk of the Commission’s activities is executed through the work of the twenty-three ethnic subcommittees who organize activities relating to their particular ethnic heritage. Generally, the subcommittees petition the Commission’s Executive Board for “endorsement” — committee cosponsorship and funding — of social, political, religious and cultural events arranged by outside organizations.
A project is “endorsed” and may receive Commission cosponsorship and funding if it receives an approval vote of a majority of the twenty-five commissioners.
The Irish subcommittee of the Rhode Island Heritage Commission derives its existence from the bylaws of the Rhode Island Heritage Commission. The Irish subcommittee is endowed with responsibility for the organization and sponsorship of activities and events commemorating the heritage of Rhode Islanders of Irish descent. In coordinating these events and activities, the Irish subcommittee is authorized to enlist the aid and cooperation of groups and individuals outside the Heritage Commission who are involved in activities relating to the Irish cultural heritage. The plaintiff Irish Northern Aid (NORAID) is a private organization based in Rhode Island and primarily composed of Rhode Islanders. NORAID’s principal purpose is to provide relief to the families of individuals affected by the Northern Irish government actions related to the current political strife in that country.
Each year since 1977, the Rhode Island Heritage Commission has sponsored a Rhode Island Heritage Day, an ethnic festival hosted by the twenty-three subcommittees. This event is held for one day each fall on the State House lawn. Each subcommittee is assigned an area of the lawn upon which it may set up booths and tables for the display and sale of ethnic food and artifacts. The booths and tables are arrayed along the lawn’s walkways. The walkways lead to the State House steps which are used as a stage area for presentations of ethnic song and dance. The displays in the booth are typically the work of outside organizations who participate in the festival at the invitation of the subcommittees. The Commission has traditionally al
lotted seven booths for Irish subcommittee’s use on Heritage Day.
In 1982 and 1983, NORAID occupied a booth on Heritage Day as an official invitee of the Irish subcommittee. Their activities consisted of, among other things, the dissemination of literature regarding the political situation in Northern Ireland and fund-raising for their relief efforts. NORAID’s participation was not Sanctioned by the Heritage Commission, but the 1982 and 1983 Heritage Days passed without incident. In 1984, neither NORAID nor the Irish subcommittee participated in the festivities because of a scheduling conflict.
Since 1977, the Heritage Commission has forbidden groups connected with the ethnic subcommittee booths from displaying or distributing political paraphernalia on Heritage Day. This prohibition is based on a Heritage Day rule (in effect since 1977) which states: “No political paraphernalia— buttons, hats, pins, pamphlets, etc. will be allowed to be displayed or distributed.” It is also in the by-laws of the Commission that:
“The Rhode Island Heritage Commission and its subcommittees are not political organizations. They will not participate in, support, endorse any political candidate or party. No' form of political expression will be allowed in the name of the Rhode Island Heritage Commission or its subcommittees.”
The Committee has enforced its ban on the distribution of political paraphernalia because it believes that political discourse and the dissemination of political paraphernalia will interfere with one objective of Heritage Day: to promote brotherhood among the various ethnic groups in Rhode Island.
In 1985 the Irish subcommittee intended that NORAID participate in the subcommittee’s booths; NORAID intended to distribute its literature from the booth. In an effort to enforce its rule regarding political activity at Heritage Day, the named defendants in their official capacities as the Commission’s Executive Committee, advised the Irish subcommittee through the Commission’s Executive Director that NO-RAID would not be permitted official participation in Heritage Day 1985. The Executive Committee expressed its belief that NORAID’s activities were political and therefore ran afoul of the Commission’s rules. The Irish subcommittee declined participation in the festivities of 1985 and instead organized an “informational picket” at the festival. The demonstration lasted approximately twenty minutes before disbanding.
The rule banning all political paraphernalia remains in effect for the 1986 Heritage Day. The plaintiffs seek declaratory judgment invalidating the rule as violative of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The plaintiffs claim that the rule violates their constitutionally guaranteed right to speak and that its discriminatory enforcement has violated their right to equal protection of the law. Consequently, the plaintiffs seek the issuance of an injunction barring the defendants from restricting the plaintiffs’ participation in Heritage Day 1986. In rebuttal, the defendants argue that the rule is a reasonable time, place and manner restriction on speech in a public forum. Both parties have moved for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
II. DISCUSSION
To succeed on a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the moving party must establish the absence of any genuine issues of material fact. To determine the existence of any questions of material fact, the Court must view the record in a light most favorable to the party opposing the motion.
John Sanderson & Co. v. Ludlow Jute Co.,
569 F.2d 696, 698 (1st Cir.1978). If the Court finds that no material facts are disputed, the Court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion to determine if the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Fristoe v. Reynolds Metals,
615 F.2d 1209, 1213 (9th Cir.1980). Taking the above-recited facts as undisput
ed, I find the plaintiffs entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
A.
Overview of First Amendment Analysis
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States commands that “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech____” Its prohibition applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
See, e.g., Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council,
425 U.S. 748, 749 n. 1, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 1819 n. 1, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976). Analysis of First Amendment questions concerning abridgement of the freedom of speech requires a three-part inquiry. First, the speech must be identified as protected under the First Amendment. Second, the Court must consider the nature of the forum, because the degree to which the state may limit access to the forum depends upon whether the forum is public or nonpublic. Third, the Court must determine whether the state’s proffered justifications for the restrictions on the speech satisfy the standards applicable in the particular forum.
Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund,
— U.S.-, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 3446-47, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985).
B.
Protected Speech
This aspect of First Amendment analysis needs little discussion here since it is beyond dispute that political speech deserves stringent Constitutional protection unless it “is directed to inciting or producing imminent unlawful action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
Bradenburg v. Ohio,
395 U.S. 444, 447, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 1829, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969). As a general matter, verbal expression is cloaked in First Amendment protection unless it falls into an unprotected category of obscenity, libel or “fighting words” — words “which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire,
315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942). There is no question that the speech in question here is entitled to First Amendment protection.
C.
Characterization of the Forum
Neither party to this action disputes that the State House lawn is a public forum. The defendants concede that they could not under any circumstances exclude the plaintiffs from the greater lawn surrounding the festival. In defining a forum, however, the Court must focus on the access sought by the speaker.
Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund,
— U.S.-, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 3449, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985). The real forum at issue therefore is the Irish Subcommittee booth within the confines of the festival.
The Heritage Day festival is a public ethnic festival. It is held on public property and the public is openly invited. It is not a private celebration. The festival is held upon grounds indisputably characterized as a public forum. It is my view that the Heritage Day booths are no less a public forum than the grounds upon which they rest. The state does not change the character of a public forum by prescribing a limited use.
A public forum exists in two ways. First, property may be a public forum because its traditional use is inextricably linked with expressive activities. Streets, parks and sidewalks are examples of traditional public forums. In the oft-quoted words of Justice Roberts:
“Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights and liberties of citizens.”
Hague v, CIO,
307 U.S. 496, 515, 59 S.Ct. 954, 964, 86 L.Ed. 1423 (1939) (Roberts, J., concurring).
A public forum may also be created when the government opens its property to the public for the exercise of expressive activities.
See Toward a Gayer Bicentennial v. Rhode Island Bicentennial Foundation,
417 F.Supp. 632, 638 (D.R.I.1976). Once the property has been opened for communicative activities, the authority of the government to limit those activities is sharply curtailed; the government must abide by the near absolute protection afforded speech in the public forum. Any ruling that the Heritage Commission’s booths are less than a public forum would destroy the entire concept of a public forum. Just as the government may not restrict access to a previously closed forum once it has been open to the public, the government may not restrict access to a public forum or change the character of that forum by the mere placement of booths upon it.
North Shore Right to Life v. Manhasset American Legion Post No. 304,
452 F.Supp. 834 (E.D.N.Y.1978) is directly on point. In
North Shore Right to Life,
an anti-abortion group sought to march in a Memorial Day parade organized by the American Legion on behalf of a Long Island town. The Legion denied the Right to Life group’s request to march because their message was political and controversial.
Id.
at 836. The court found that the permit denial violated the Right to Life group’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights which attach to speech in the public forum. The court did not explicitly state that the parade was itself a public forum, although it analyzed the case as a public forum problem. Implicit in the opinion is the view that a parade is as much a public forum as the street upon which it is held. I subscribe to this view and hold that the Heritage Day booths, like the lawn beneath them, are part of the public forum.
D.
The First Amendment in the Public Forum
Once a court has determined that a particular parcel of property is a public forum, it must invalidate any content-based abridgement of the right to speak unless the restriction is supported by a compelling state interest, and the means used are narrowly tailored to that end.
Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.,
— U.S.-, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 3448, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985). In the public forum, the state may also impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions so long as they are content-neutral, supported by a substantial state interest and narrowly tailored to that end.
Perry Education Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n,
460 U.S. 37, 45, 103 S.Ct. 948, 954, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983),
U.S. v. Grace,
461 U.S. 171, 177, 103 S.Ct. 1702, 1706, 75 L.Ed.2d 736 (1983).
1.
Content Neutrality
The Heritage Commission’s rule prohibiting the display of political paraphernalia is clearly a content-based restriction of expression. The Rule prohibits the display of political, but not other types of, paraphernalia. A ban on an entire subject matter is no less a content-based restriction than a ban on expression of a particular viewpoint, and both kinds of restrictions are antithetical to the goals of the First Amendment in the public forum. “[AJbove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.”
Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley,
408 U.S. 92, 95, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 2290, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972). This hostility to content-based regulations extends to prohibitions on public discussion of entire topics for the simple reason that if the government was permitted to select the permissible subject matter of public discussion, the government could “control ... the search for political truth.”
Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm’n,
447 U.S. 530, 538, 100 S.Ct. 2326, 2333, 65 L.Ed.2d 319 (1980) (invalidating a public service commission regulation which prohibited the discussion of all “political matters” in utility bill inserts).
Directly on point is
Widmar v. Vincent,
454 U.S. 263, 102 S.Ct. 269, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981). In that case, a university that had made its facilities generally open to student group meetings refused access to students
desiring to use school facilities for religious worship and discussion.
Id.
at 264-65, 102 S.Ct. at 271-72. Although the school did not discriminate on the basis of the religious viewpoint expressed, the Supreme Court struck down the restriction as a content-based abridgement of the right to speak in a public forum for which the Court could find no compelling justification.
Id.
at 267, 102 S.Ct. at 273. The Commission’s prohibition on all political speech is therefore a content-based restriction of speech despite its facial viewpoint neutrality. It will fare no better than the rule in
Widmar
unless justified by compelling state interests.
2.
Compelling State Interests
Because I have found that the Heritage Commission’s regulation is a content-based restriction of speech, the Heritage Commission must offer compelling state interests for its support.
The Commission must also demonstrate that the complete proscription of political paraphernalia is narrowly tailored to meet those ends.
The Heritage Commission defends its regulation on the grounds that the prohibition is necessary to avoid divisiveness and to promote ethnic brotherhood on Heritage Day. The Executive Director of the Commission has stated:
“The goal of the Heritage Festival is to foster brotherhood and understanding among the people of Rhode Island. We do that through the exchanging of ideas, customs, and traditions that exist amongst groups in Rhode Island. We have 23 ethnic subcommittees that are part of the Rhode Island Heritage Commission, and we asked them, once a year, to put on a Heritage Festival on the State House lawn. We asked for an atmosphere that fosters this brotherhood and understanding amongst the groups. Our purpose in not allowing political activity is that this would not be a way of fostering brotherhood in the State of Rhode Island. We have the various subcommittees with their own histories of the countries that are foreign to the United States____ We have Irish and British Subcommittees and ask them to put aside their views and animosities for that one particular day and try to — you are in the United States now and you are living here, show us the customs and traditions that you have had, that you have brought with you to the United States. Do that through your foods, your songs, your dance and through the arts and crafts and the folk arts that you may have. Do that on that particular day.”
(Deposition of Raymond E. Gallison, Jr. at 11-12)
The Commission fears that if they are compelled to allow NORAID to occupy a booth, then equally political groups of differing viewpoints will also demand access, thus embroiling the subcommittees and the Commission in an “international donneybrook.” The Commission would like to avoid the political dissension which might arise if ethnic groups with competing political ideologies occupied the same area at the Festival. The defendants seek to demonstrate that any policy of permitting political groups equal access to the booths would be disruptive of the Festival’s atmosphere of ethnic harmony.
However laudable the Commission’s goal of preventing dissent and promoting brotherhood may be, avoidance of dissent has never been found to justify a content-based regulation of speech, unless the words “by their very utterance inflict
injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire,
315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942). To the contrary, one of the vital functions of freedom of speech is to invite dispute.
Terminiello v. City of Chicago,
337 U.S. 1, 4, 69 S.Ct. 894, 895, 93 L.Ed. 1131 (1949). Public inconvenience, annoyance or even unrest can never justify a curtailment of speech in the public forum.
Id.
“In our system, undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.”
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District,
393 U.S. 503, 508, 89 S.Ct. 733, 737, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969) (holding unconstitutional a ban on wearing armbands in schools because authorities feared disruption from the anti-Vietnam War message).
The Commission seeks to justify its exclusion of NORAID on the grounds that allowing political groups into the booth area would be tantamount to requiring the Commission to sponsor two events at the same time — a cultural information exchange and a political rally. While recognizing that a public forum requires the state to provide equal access to all groups,
see e.g., Widmar v. Vincent,
454 U.S. 263, 102 S.Ct. 269, 70 L.Ed.2d 940 (1981) the Commission argues that public forum jurisprudence would not require that a forum be open to different groups for different purposes at the same time. As a general proposition, the defendants’ argument is correct. The First Amendment does not require that a government open a public forum to conflicting groups for conflicting events at the same time. The Supreme Court has noted that two parades cannot march on the same street at the same time and the government may deny permission to one parade without running afoul of the First Amendment.
See Grayned v. City of Rockford,
408 U.S. 104, 115, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2302, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972),
Cox v. New Hampshire,
312 U.S. 569, 576, 61 S.Ct. 762, 763, 85 L.Ed. 1049 (1941). The reasons for this permissible exclusion from a public forum are easy to discern. Two parades would cause chaos in public streets in the way one parade would not. Allowing two groups access to a forum at the same time would probably only ensure that neither group was granted an effective forum in which to make their views known. I can find, however, no incompatability between the informational activities of NORAID and the cultural exchange proposed by the Heritage Commission that would warrant finding that NORAID’s inclusion in the Festival would force the commingling of two separate events in the same forum. The Heritage Festival is, at heart, an informational exchange. Dissemination of information regarding the social and cultural aspects of ethnic heritage is not incompatible with distribution of information regarding the political aspects of that same heritage. The means are the same, and neither message would be lost.
The Commission has expressed concern that if NORAID or other political organizations are allowed to participate in the Festival, then politics will take “center stage” on Heritage Day. The Commission fears that political speechmaking will find its way into the Festival through the booths and onto the stage area on the State House steps. The Commission’s concerns, while not rising to the level of a compelling state interest sufficient to justify excluding NO-RAID from the booths entirely, will support a restriction on the kind of activities in which NORAID (or any other organization) may engage while occupying a booth.
While the Commission may not prohibit a “political” group’s peaceful dissemination of leaflets, the sale and display of cultural artifacts, or the sale of food and drink from the booth, it may prohibit political speech-making both from the booth area and from the stage area of the State House steps. Allowing political exhortations to the crowd from either area would be tantamount to requiring the Heritage Commission to sponsor both a Heritage Festival and a political rally and would considerably alter the nature of the festivities.
The defendants contend that NO-RAID should be excluded from the Festival because NORAID’s participation through the Irish subcommittee will align the state with an organization embroiled in international politics outside the State’s proper province. The Committee, in essence, seeks to avoid stamping NORAID’s political view with the State’s imprimatur of approval. This issue is not new to this Court. In
Toward a Gayer Bicentennial Committee v. Rhode Island Bicentennial Foundation,
417 F.Supp. 642 (D.R.I.1976) this Court held that a consortium of representatives of organizations dedicated to the concerns of persons of homosexual or bisexual preference could not be denied access to a limited public forum (the old Rhode Island State House) solely because the Bicentennial Commission believed that their endorsement of the activities would involve official approval.
Id.
at 645. At that time, this Court ruled that such a justification for a speaker’s exclusion from a public forum is completely unacceptable, and I do not deviate from that principle today. Government officials may not restrict access to a public forum merely because they disagree with the views to be expressed there.
See, e.g., Healy v. James,
408 U.S. 169, 187-88, 92 S.Ct. 2338, 2349, 33 L.Ed.2d 266 (1972).
The Heritage Commission has, in effect, attempted to banish NORAID to the bargain basement of the marketplace of ideas because of the views it espouses. It attempts to denégrate and discredit NO-RAID’s message by denying it equal participation with the “nonpolitical groups” in the Heritage Day festivities. I note, too, that NORAID’s exclusion would take place in the shadows of the State House, thus magnifying the indignity, and the apparent state approval of NORAID’s outcast status. As Justice Black once warned:
“I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish.”
Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board,
367 U.S. 1, 137, 81 S.Ct. 1357, 1431, 6 L.Ed.2d 625 (1961) (Black, J., dissenting).
In any endorsement scheme there is always a grave danger that the standards for official approval will serve only as a mask behind which the government hides as it excludes speakers from the public forum solely because of what they intend to say. As Judge J. Skelly Wright wrote:
“If [First Amendment rights] could be exercised only when government is willing to offer its cosponsorship to the speaker, a system of free expression would be indistinguishable from a system of prior restraint.”
Women Strike for Peace v. Morton,
472 F.2d 1273, 1280 (1972) (Wright, J., concurring.)
The Commission’s final justification for excluding NORAID from the Heritage Day festivities is that NORAID has failed to comply with the Commission’s rule that all funds received from Heritage Day festivities must be turned over to the Commission to be used to sponsor activities and events during the year. Evidence in the record tends to call into question whether this rule has been enforced uniformly against the Heritage Day participants. This dispute is not, however, material to the result I reach today. The Commission may exact, as a precondition to NORAID’s official participation in the Heritage Day events, a commitment from NORAID that it will conform to the financial guidelines of the Commission. This precondition will not infringe upon NORAID’s right to propagate its views amongst the visitors to the festivities, but is a minimal concession given in exchange for official participation in the day’s events.
See, e.g., Healy v. James,
408 U.S. 169, 192-93, 92 S.Ct. 2338, 2351-52, 33 L.Ed.2d 266 (1972) (ruling that the organization seeking official recognition from a college must agree to comply with reasonable restrictions imposed in the interest of the entire community).
The defendants offer that NO-RAID’s exclusion from the booths is a minimal infringement on the plaintiffs’ First Amendment freedoms, and that because the lawn area outside the Festival is open to the plaintiffs for their political discourse, this restriction should survive constitutional scrutiny. The availability of alternative forums for expressive activities will not, however, cure an otherwise defective content-based regulation.
Southeastern Promotions v. Conrad,
420 U.S. 546, 556, 95 S.Ct. 1239, 1245, 43 L.Ed.2d 448, (1975). “[0]ne is not to have the exercise of his liberty of expression in appropriate places abridged on the plea that it may be exercised in some other place.”
Schneider v. State,
308 U.S. 147, 163, 60 S.Ct. 146, 151-52, 84 L.Ed. 155 (1939).
The Commission’s regulation must fail for the additional reason that it is entirely unenforceable and leaves tremendous discretion in the hands of the Executive Board to decide what is and is not political. I note that the Heritage Day regulations do not define “political.” It is a subject upon which reasonable minds may differ and the possibility of discriminatory enforcement is very real.
The plaintiffs have alleged that in 1985, the Black Heritage booths displayed a pamphlet entitled, “VOTE, Politics and the African Legacy.” That issue is not denied, but the defendants’ claim that they approached the Black subcommittee chairperson, Fred Williamson, and informed him that political information had been distributed from his subcommittee’s booth. (Affidavit of Fred Williamson at 2). Mr. Williamson does not dispute that the pamphlet may have been inadvertently displayed at the booth. He does, however, dispute that the material is political.
“[T]he booklet entitled “VOTE, Politics and the African Legacy” should not be considered an advocacy pamphlet of a politically offensive partisan nature. The booklet contains papers by distinguished scholars that explore the rela
tionship between race and politics in different parts of the world. The booklet was funded by the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, an affiliate of the National Endowment of the Humanities. It is a scholarly, informational booklet that contains reprints of essays delivered by humanities scholars at a symposium sponsored by the Rhode Island Black Studies Consortium. (Affidavit of Fred Williamson at 3.)
Clearly, as regards this particular pamphlet, one man’s politics is another man’s cultural heritage. Determining what is political is particularly difficult in the area of ethnic heritage since much of what we now consider our ethnic heritage derives from the political struggles of the past. The Commission’s attempts to exclude political groups from Heritage Day amount to little more than a licensing requirement based on an undefined notion of what is political. “In the absence of narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards for the officials to follow,” this kind of participation requirement must be condemned as a naked prior restraint on speech in the public forum.
Niemotko v. Maryland,
340 U.S. 268, 271, 71 S.Ct. 325, 327, 95 L.Ed. 267 (1951).
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, I find that the plaintiffs are entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law.
I therefore order the following relief:
1. I hereby declare that the actions of the defendants in prohibiting the plaintiffs from distributing pamphlets pertaining to the situation in Northern Ireland and barring the attendance of Irish Northern Aid at the Heritage Day Festival for 1985 and threatening to prohibit the distribution of pamphlets pertaining to Northern Ireland and threatening to bar Irish Northern Aid from participation in Heritage Day activities for 1986, to be violative of the plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights;
2. I declare all rules, regulations and guidelines of the Rhode Island Heritage Commission which prohibit the display or dissemination of political paraphernalia, including pamphlets, buttons, hats and pins to be void as offensive to the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution;
3. I permanently enjoin the defendants, their agents, servants, employees, officers and attorneys from in any way restricting the participation of the plaintiff Irish Northern Aid in Heritage Day 1986 and from prohibiting any of the plaintiffs from distributing or displaying political paraphernalia pertaining to conditions in Northern Ireland;
4. I declare that Irish Northern Aid may not, as part of its participation in the Heritage Day festivities, engage in political speechmaking or loud public oratory from the booth or stage area of the Heritage Day festival;
5. I declare that the Rhode Island Heritage Commission may exact Irish Northern Aid’s commitment to comply with all financial regulations of the Commission as a precondition to Irish Northern Aid’s participation in Heritage Day 1986;
6. I further order that the plaintiffs be awarded their costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees in an amount to be determined at a subsequent hearing.